Why Solving Inequality is Key to a Climate Smart and Food Secure Future

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Research has shown that addressing gender inequality in agriculture would see a much-needed increase in global food security. The same is also true in the context of climate change: for example, rural women are often more vulnerable than men to climate shocks but given the right support, they can significantly boost yields and help make farming more resilient. This is why gender has been flagged as one of the six issues we need to tackle in an issues paper co-authored by CARE International, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), and the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) for the COP 20 UN Climate Conference in Lima, Peru.

Gender is clearly an issue in the farming sector in developing countries. Despite providing half of the agricultural workforce and their strong role in ensuring proper family nutrition, especially for children and vulnerable household members, a great majority of women in the 500 million smallholder farming households don’t often have much say in how the farm resources are allocated. The unequal access for women to land, livestock, labour, education, extension, and financial services and technology has led to a significant gender yield gap, on average 20 to 30 percent lower than men’s fields, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Climate change will amplify such inequalities as resources and access to goods and services become constrained. In the Kaffrine region in Senegal for example, custom dictates that men first plant for themselves right after the first rains in early June, then they plant for their wives about a month into the season. When rains become erratic, late crop planting penalizes women.

The Kaffrine region is one of the target areas for piloting climate adaptation technologies under the climate-smart villages (CSV) initiative, led by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), which co-published the issues paper. Participatory research in villages around the world has shown that a combination of improved farming practices (e.g. techniques that save irrigation water; more diversified crop farming systems like agroforestry and tailored climate advisories through mobile phone), can raise farms productivity and incomes as well as their resilience. Women are often less likely to be aware of climate-smart agricultural practices, but when they are aware, they are just as likely as men to adopt these practices. Part of the climate-smart village approach focuses on involving women so that they can identify the most effective and beneficial set of practices.

Community-based adaptation planning is another effective way to design climate resilient livelihood strategies and address the underlying causes of vulnerability. Karl Deering, CARE International’s Africa regional climate change coordinator who co-published the issues paper, knows how essential it is to find ways to improve women’s empowerment so they can become an active part of the climate-smart revolution. CARE follows a grid of 23 social change dimensions, for example, looking at a better control of women’s own labor, for the participants to shift from a gender blind to a gender transformative community. For instance, discussion in pastoralist communities of Dakoro district, Niger, led to a more sustainable and equitable division of labor between men and women.

However, the risk is that such successes remain isolated, at a pilot scale, in communities with healthy research-for-development support.

The question about scaling up is a very pressing challenge. According to Bruce Campbell, who leads the CCAFS program, for climate-smart agriculture to become the rule rather than the exception, key elements need to be in place including mechanisms to reach large numbers of farmers. These mechanisms include mobile phone operated information services and government action to integrate climate considerations in all agricultural investment plans.

The example of climate-smart villages highlights the potential for a rapid transformation of agriculture. Dozens of these villages in South Asia and Africa have tested new technologies where villagers worked with scientists to assess problems and solutions and have piloted a range of practices, from crop diversification, to a tool that assesses the precise amounts of fertilizer needed. Now, the Indian state of Maharashtra (population 112.3 million) is scaling this up by planning to establish 1,000 climate-smart villages.

Yes, adaptation to climate change in the agricultural sector has a cost, estimated around US$11 to US$12 billion per year in 2030, but the human cost will be greater if we do not help families to cope with the changing climate. Warmer temperatures will worsen the already grim global malnutrition picture as yields of essential staple foods will decrease, like legumes (up to 25 percent decrease predicted for beans) or potatoes.

“No one can deny that urgent action is needed. Climate change is not an abstract concept. Impacts are already happening as we are on a four degrees rather than 1.5 degrees temperature increase pathway,” says Sven Harmeling, CARE’s climate change advocacy coordinator. “IPCC has assessed that this will bring major impacts on food security and that it exacerbates existing inequalities,” he adds.

Better access to land and setting up women’s cooperatives are among the options for women to be at the center of local climate action. Women are especially keen to find ways to improve their daily family meals. Home gardens, including the cultivation of micronutrient rich vegetables like orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, and the keeping of small livestock are examples of agricultural interventions particularly accessible to women and likely to enhance household nutritional outcomes.

Gender and nutrition, local action, and scaling up are only some of the key issues that need to be addressed in a changing climate. CARE, CCAFS, and CTA debated the way forward during a special seminar during the COP20 in Lima, Peru.